Radulovich Becomes Second BART Director to Call for GM’s Resignation

Tom Radulovich became the second member of the BART Board of Directors today to call for GM Dorothy Dugger’s resignation. He cited, among other things, cell phone video uncovered over the weekend by KTVU that shows a BART police officer beating a man on the platform shortly before another BART officer shot and killed 22-year-old Oscar Grant.

"Apparently this video’s been available to BART police for a long time. Only when it became an issue with the press did BART open up the investigation of the officer and that really erodes the credibility of the organization," said Radulovich, who was recently appointed to a committee that will provide additional oversight of BART police.

In a statement issued earlier today Dugger seemed not to know anything about the video, except from media reports: "We will fully examine any new evidence or information including this new video." The agency claims it received no other allegations of "unreasonable force by any officer other than
former BART Police officer Johannes Mehserle."

Radulovich, who represents District 9 and is also the executive director of Livable City, accused Dugger of bungling the shooting investigation and said the "kind of openness and transparency that has been a hallmark of BART for many, many years" has been damaged.

He also accused Dugger of fiscal mismanagement and said her refusal to purchase new rail cars for the Warm Springs extension will erode system wide service and cause severe overcrowding.

"This is the second time that BART said no we don’t need rail cars to operate an extension and the second time that BART will have lied about that. We did it first with SFO and we’re doing it again," said Radulovich.

Radulovich is the second director to call for Dugger’s resignation. Last week, Lynette Sweet, whose District 7 encompasses parts of San Francisco, Alameda and Contra Costa counties, demanded Dugger’s resignation. If Dugger refuses to resign, it would take five votes on the board to oust her.

"I just don’t trust that she’s got customer needs at heart. I think the
whole Bay Area is really dubious right now about BART’s credibility for
anything," said Radulovich.

I’m not terribly familiar with Ms Dugger’s alleged professional deficiencies, but I trust Mr Radulovich’s immensely

It’s worth noting that the BART GM isn’t elected by the people, but appointed by vote of the BART board (which is elected). I’ve thought for some time now that BART’s governing structure is set up poorly, with the result being disproportionate focus on exurban areas and lack of accountability.

I wonder if having a GM elected by vote of all people in the BART counties, or by the BART board with each director’s voting strength proportional to the number of constituents in his or her own BART district might remove some of the insulation from the position.

While Dugger is far from being the voice of reason in this whole BART shooting/ beating debacle, shouldn’t we see the Police Chief, Gary Gee gone first? Public trust for the transit agency, specifically BART Police, has been decimated, and we’re left feeling that their series of long-winded apologies and reassurances to the public was a PR stunt that just went belly-up with the release of the second damning piece of home video last week.

Go, Tom, go. As a friend who has worked for BART for a number of decades once told me, “The basic management style of BART is suburban fascist.” This shooting and its digital capture by so many citizens has unfortunately revealed that semi-joke to be all too true. It’s also why there are no BART trains at night for working people. The suburban management are afraid the undesirables from the cities are going to come and murder them in the night, which is absurd.

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